Cupcake Bites

Little Tikes cupcake set interacts with kitchen

Who knew that cupcakes weren't immune to the age-old battle between beauty and brains? You've already seen the poster child for the former, those cute Sorting Shapes Cupcakes by Learning Resources, so now it's time to take a look at the representative of the latter.

The Little Tikes Cook 'N Learn Cupcake Set ($10) is designed for use with the uber-smart Cook 'N Learn Kitchen ($100) but can certainly be enjoyed without it. The RFID tag embedded into each cupcake, which enables the interactive kitchen to recognize it and teach children about sorting and shapes, is rendered utterly useless without the kitchen, but why expose kids to Big Brother so early, anyway? They'll know soon enough that a traffic cam, security camera, or some other eye in the sky is watching and recording every move they make outside, so why bring the freaky "I know what you're doing" technology into their playrooms?

Felt cupcake sugar cookies

Here's something for the minimalist child who likes to keep a clean play kitchen. Rather than clutter her cupboards and oven with a tray of cookies and a pan of cupcakes, give her this adorable quartet of felt sugar cookies frosted to look like cupcakes.

For just $12, she can choose between serving a plate of sugar cookies or tempting playmates with chocolate cherry, blueberry, lemon, and mint chocolate cupcakes. It's two toys in one!

Each piece in the set measures 2.5" x 3" and is stuffed with poly fill.

Cupcakes for shape-sorting fun

How much do you love Learning Resources right now?

They're the imaginative folks behind those adorable Mix & Match Doughnuts, which is actually just one of several dessert-themed educational toys making up the company's Smart Snacks series. One of my other favorites in the line-up are these Sorting Shapes Cupcakes ($17), a set of six cupcakes that pull apart to reveal different shapes and fit nicely into a plastic baking pan. The toy is great as a tool to help children learn their shapes, develop fine motor skills, and encourage pretend play.

It would also be the perfect addition to a growing collection of toys I'll never admit to having.

Cupcakes heat up knitting art form

The white-haired granny character in Tweety Bird cartoons really gave knitting a bad name. As evidenced by these artfully knitted cupcakes, the popular pastime is hardly just for umbrella-wielding senior citizens who punish cats for giving into their primal instincts (sufferin' succotash, indeed).

Quite the contrary, artist Ms. Darcy knits each fanciful inedible, which she gives fantastic names like Cozy Cocoa Caramel or Angel Food with a Fuzzy Strawberry Swirl, as a "sculptural object that embodies" her investigation of the "nature of crafting and knitting as a higher art form."

Have a look at some of these embodiments below and see the rest at Darcy's Crossing.

Littlest Pet Shop mouse with cupcake house

My four-year-old niece would adamantly disagree, but I have to say that the bobble-headed pets in Hasbro's Littlest Pet Shop series are some of the scariest looking toys ever created. Those disconcertingly big eyes and vacant expressions do nothing to combat my perception of their creepiness. Still, I must admit that this little lavender mouse is growing on me. Sure, her face looks more like ET than anything else, but come on! Anything that calls a cupcake home is undeniably cute (and she's rather charming beneath that enormous pink bow).

The uninspiringly named "Mouse with Cupcake" is part of the Portable Pets series and available now for $3.99 from the Hasbro Toy Shop.